Dr. Geraldine Brennan:

With regard to our network and the journey we started to form CIRCULÉIRE, this activity started in 2019 when we ran stakeholder engagement events with industry, policymakers, the third sector, and academia. At the end of 2019 we started off with 20 companies. Then Covid hit. We had a big ambition to grow the network and double it every year. In answer to the Chairman's question on corporate engagement, the awareness about the circular economy is ever-growing in an Irish context. Irish manufacturing went about the stakeholder engagement process in 2019 to understand the need for a network such as CIRCULÉIRE because in some of our sustainability dialogues in 2018, Irish Manufacturing Research, IMR, members were asking "What is this circular economy and what does it mean for our business?" In a roundabout way I am trying to articulate that with corporate engagement we now have 37 members. They are a range of actors because a circular economy is not something that can be addressed just by manufacturers; they need to work in collaboration with their supply chains. Yes, there is corporate engagement. The chairman mentioned J&J Vision Care, which is in the medical-tech environment. We also have DePuy Synthes and we have actors from different sectors in the manufacturing and broader supply chains. The nature of CIRCULÉIRE is varied. That said, I can give examples of other entities such as Kingspan and Cisco which are not part of CIRCULÉIRE because they have already embraced this agenda and have said, "We understand what you are seeking to do and we can definitely feed insights into your members but we do not need you because we are already doing it." We have a mixed bag of actors at different levels of maturity with regard to their journey towards a circular business model and what role they will play. Many companies are starting to realise that they can get disrupted if they do not understand what this means for their business. All sites will engage with the Government signals and the momentum of the EU, especially from multinationals because this is not unique to Ireland it is a European issue. I am very positive about engagement, and around trying to grapple with what this means for business in the next five, ten, 15 or 20 years.